A stupid fucking question and a brilliant fucking response.

Jan 07, 2013

Big ups to GQ writer, Michael Idov who has been working with the legal counsel of Russian Feminist punk group, Pussy Riot to get information out from the band members (now each serving a two year sentence.) The questions reveal information on the daily life and state of mind of members Nadezhda "Nadya" Tolokonnikova and Maria "Masha" Alyokhina. Third member Yekaterina "Katya" Samutsevich's responses were confiscated by guards.

In typical GQ fashion, perhaps too many questions are dedicated to superficial causes but the answers still succeed in affirming the strength and badassery of these women.

GQ: Does it bug you as feminists that your global popularity is at least partly based on the fact that you turned out to be, well, easy on the eyes? Nadya: I humbly hope that our attractiveness performs a subversive function. First of all, because without "us" in balaclavas, jumping all over Red Square with guitars, there is no "us" smiling sweetly in the courtroom. You can't get the latter without the former. Second, because this attractiveness destroys the idiotic stereotype, still extant in Russia, that a feminist is an ugly-ass frustrated harridan. This stereotype is so puke-making that I will deign to be sweet for a little bit in order to destroy it. Though every time I open my mouth, the sweetness goes out the window anyway.

(The picture above of Pussy Riot members casually relaxing in an IKEA is also making a bit of news. IKEA Russia's website had this picture up as part of a gallery of images featuring customers in the store. Visitors of the site were encouraged to vote on the their favorite image. This picture has since been taken down despite it's stronghold of votes for the competition. Since IKEA has removed the image (citing a position that avoids politics and religion), it only makes sense to keep posting it in other places.)